First I hiked up Thatchtop and onto the NE Ridge of Powell. The ridge was fun, but I only found about 1/10 of the mile long ridge to be scrambling, and of that only about 40 feet of true 4th class. The S side of the ridge provided some amazing views. I finished over Taylor, up Otis and down Andrews Glacier. Car to Car 6:43.

Peak #5 of 7 on the day, the traverse from Thatchtop looked much more interesing than the one from Taylor. The change in the ridge from N->S is amazing though(sheer walls). The down climb to the Notch was easy, just follow the gulley to the grassy ledge and traverse.

My first climb with crampons, I nearly killed myself on the upper part of this route. I got on some snowy class 3 rock after bailing from the ice because of aching calves, and took off the crampons. I was dry-tooling like a madman, trying to reach a ledge where I could put on my crampons again. An impromptu intro to mixed climbing. I wallowed, alternating postholing and floating, around Taylor to come down Andrews glacier, finding a frozen Andrews Tarn, and made it back to the car some 11 or 12 hours after starting.

I climbed this with a good friend, Howard, from Estes Park. We went up Andrew's Glacier and traversed around Taylor to Powell Peak. We didn't reach the summit until early afternoon. It was cold and windy with occassional ground blizzards from a recent snowfall. We returned to Andrew's late in the afternoon and since it was icy on the way up we decided not to downclimb without a rope...instead we went the long way around to the Flattop trail and back to where we left our car at Glacier Gorge Junction. The only reward for going the long way was to be on the divide just after dark and be able to see both the lights of Grand Lake and Estes Park (and lights out on the flat lands).